ms Amsterdam
July 19, 2013
We are now officially in the middle of nowhere.
Each day about 12:45 pm the captain gives a position and weather report. Yesterday
afternoon he confirmed what we had suspected: no satellite. Period. Can you hear me
now? Uh, no. Good heavens, we've even lost Fox News!
The captain explained that all communication is now by radio. We, along with 14,000
other ships at sea, are being monitored by an agency based in West Virginia of all
places. Should any vessel have an emergency, all other ships in that vicinity are alerted
and will provide assistance. It's sort of a sea-going AAA Roadside Emergency service.
So now we are traveling old school: no Internet, email, CNN or (gasp) ESPN. By
tomorrow we should be close enough to Easter Island to pick up the NFL playoff games
and the Australian Open tennis, and those poor souls who keep wandering around with
iPads or laptops looking for a (non-existent) wifi hot spot can finally get on line.
We do still receive an eight-letter page size New York Times each morning. It contains
summaries of the latest international and national news, stock market numbers, some
sports and a few editorial and opinion pieces and the daily crossword. I don't miss the
TV except for the network evening news but I really miss radio and the local news.
Not quite enough to spend 25 cents a minute to read the Marietta Daily Journal online
though.
It's noon as I type this. We're still sailing on a course of 249 degrees at nearly 19
knots so we can reach Easter Island early Monday morning. (Quick check to confirm
it is indeed Saturday today.) The seas are remarkably calm; the temperature a steady
72 degrees with an apparent wind of 19 knots. It's pretty near perfect in the middle of
nowhere with just enough puffy clouds for spectacular sunsets.
Today's quirky fact: Easter Island is Chilean and stays on Chilean time. So here, in the
middle of nowhere, nearly 1300 nautical miles from General San Martin, Peru, it is still
EST, so sunrise and sunset times get a bit later every day. I'm assuming that as soon
as we leave Easter Island we will be changing time every day until we catch up with the
rest of the world.
In between Easter Island and Tahiti we spend a few hours offshore of Pitcairn Island.
All the veteran travelers say this is so the 40 or 50 citizens of PI can come out in their long boat (note singular) with "stuff" to sell. The pool deck is closed to sunning and
swimming so the islanders can set up a market to sell "stuff." A lot of stuff. Each family
has their own table. I'm imagining the world's oddest flea market.There is no air service
to Pitcairn (it's only 1 x 2 miles) so supplies come by boat four times a year. About 20 or
so cruise ships will stop during the year so this occasion is a Big Deal for the islanders
and from what I hear great fun for everyone.
It's Formal Night #3 tonight so Jim is trying to choose which of his two ties he will wear.
He leads such a complicated life...
Absolutely loving every single one of your entries....although I must say I'm a little concerned you've lost all sense of time on this adventure. You may want to download a calendar app to your ipad, as we are still in January 2013, not July 2013 (see your date at the top of this post!) Regardless, keep these updates coming!
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